The drama of the 89th Annual Academy Awards was not due to the actors or motion pictures being honored. The drama occurred as a result of a blunder caused by the accounting firm of PriceWaterhouseCooper. Accounting firms are not normally known for drama.

Brian Cullinan, one of the two PriceWaterhouseCoopers partners who handled the Oscar envelopes on Sunday night, was tweeting photos from backstage minutes before he handed Warren Beatty the wrong Best Picture envelope.

Multitasking caused this error. Multitasking simply doesn’t work; it just isn’t possible to do two things at once.

The most incredible part was when the accountant jumps up and says, ‘He (presenter Warren Beatty) took the wrong envelope!’ and goes running onstage.”

He took the wrong envelope? Nope. You gave him the wrong envelope.

Now, imagine all the times children need their parents attention. Parents are so often on their phones, children feel less important than the Snapchat stories parents are creating, text messages they are sending, or Facebook posts. It has become such an epidemic that a nursery school post asking parents to pay attention to their kids went viral.

What the incident at the Academy Awards demonstrated was that sometimes the effect of our inability to multitask is immediate.

What we won’t know for some time is the impact multitasking has on our children. If Cat Stevens’s lyrics hold true as written in Cat’s in the Cradle, then I’m gonna’ be like you dad, you know I’m gonna’ be like you.

Finally, how do we define irony? While mentally composing this blog post, I got on the wrong train.

Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn led the effort to rig 11 million cars worldwide so that pollution controls would work only when regulators were testing them. The rest of the time, on the road in regular use, a “defeat device” was engaged, and those same cars emitted up to 40 times as many smog-forming nitrogen oxides.

Talk to your children about:

Choices people make as it relates to integrity

The cost associated to people believing in you again

The value of a reputation

Experiences they can relate to, such as test taking, and students demonstrating acts of kindness

One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first.

Malala Yousafzai to the UN Youth Assembly 2012.

According to the 2015 Child Stats government data, there are presently 49.7 million children ages 6 to 17 living in the U.S.

What would happen if all those children began to recognize problems and offer solutions? They would be successful because children don’t stop to think of all the reasons why something might not work!

Instead of making excuses, they would take action, which usually starts in their own community. By experiencing success, they gain courage, confidence and know how needed to build a network. These children aren’t special; in fact they are regular kids with one thing that gives them (dare I say it) a superpower. It’s conviction.

As you read stories about these children, you will be inspired. When your own child comes to you with the desire to tackle a problem, don’t dismiss them; encourage them. After all, where do you think the next generation of leaders will come from?

Here is one simple idea to get started…most families are getting ready for back to school which means a shiny new book bag filled with new school supplies. There are nearly half a million children in Foster Care that don’t experience that annual family tradition and very likely aren’t prepared on the first day of school

With your child search online for local organizations that welcome donations and give a foster child a reason to smile on the first day of school.

Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?
Glinda: Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.

In order to survive and thrive, babies have complete reliance on their parents. As they grow and learn, we need to help them build self-reliance.

What is self-reliance?

A person who is self-reliant is self-sufficient, able to think and function independently, is not risk-averse and solves problems rather than worries about them. Such a person would trust his own judgment, rarely needing to consult others for advice or guidance. A self-reliant person has better control of his life and can handle any curveball that life may throw his way. This is exactly what we want to build in our adult children.

Here are strategies that can be used as a starting point, and consider age appropriateness.

Don’t do things for your children they can do for themselves. Three-year-olds can make their beds. An easy way to do that is to take three pictures as an example and hang the pictures by the bed.

Let them problem solve – be your child’s coach rather than sage.

For a middle school aged child with a problem with friends…Ask them, “What’s bothering you?” Let them explain and then assure them… “I know you can figure this out.” Give them time and ask, “How do you think you can fix this problem?”

Make room for mistakes – nothing is perfect, especially not at first.

They are learning self-reliance so they aren’t going to get it right all the time, whether it is how to make the bed, take the garbage out, set the table for dinner, or put windshield washer fluid in the car. Don’t jump in to ‘rescue’ them or hover over them. We learn by our mistakes.

Other ideas:

Begin with small tasks. Don’t say, “Clean up this room.” But instead, “Put the Legos in the bin.”

Encourage ‘free-play” throughout the day. Children need time to make their own rules, pretend and establish boundaries.

Schedule daily chores – children should learn early they are part of a family and that means helping with chores. Create a chore chart, with pictures for younger children.

Provide options when possible. Choice should be limited for younger children, and can increase as children mature. This helps them become independent thinking. This often begins with choices in what they are going to wear.

Give them stretch goals – ask them to do a little more than might be expected. That can be great for their self-esteem. You may even want to plan what new things they can try for the week. As an example, think of household skills, cooking skills, financial skills, or life skills.

Recognize them for things they’ve done well, but don’t recognize them for things they haven’t; the praise will be meaningless. Say, “Great job on putting all the Legos away!” or “Thank you for bringing the dinner dishes over.”

Since I opened with a classic movie line that helps reinforce the concept of self-reliance, I would like to close with one as well.

There is only one way to have a friend, and that is to be a friend. Ralph Waldo Emerson

If necessity is the mother of invention, then our children had to find ways to make friends online because we make it difficult to make friends the old fashioned way; on the playground.

We were told we were bad mothers if our children played outside. The alternative was to keep them inside where they found entertainment watching TV and playing electronic games.

From the time they are babies, we organize play dates, and as young as toddlers, we put them in organized sports. The problem is they have no idea how to organize a pick up game of baseball. They may not even know what a pick up game is.

When their friends do come over, they sit side by side playing electronic games with no face time (I mean that literally).

Left on their own, children invent games on the fly, natural leaders rise to the occasion, and friendships are formed; all with no adult intervention.

Let’s give our children the opportunity to learn how to be a good friend, which includes:

Giving them free time – don’t over schedule

Making friends a priority

Be there for good times and bad times

Be honest and kind

Be loyal

Knowing what to say and when to say it

That in time of crisis – drop everything

Be happy for them when good things happen to them

A smile and positive outlook go a long way!

All week, please look out for ideas to help you and your child discuss friendship on Parental Wisdom’s Facebook page, Twitter Feed and Instagram.

Friends are people you can count on, but don’t need to count on Facebook. This blog post is dedicated to people I am privileged to call my friends.

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. Abraham Lincoln

Please watch this week’s video on Happiness. I encourage you to ask your children what makes them happy and post their video in response.

Happiness is such a basic and important quality; but how do we get there? Our children are always watching the behavior we model and do what we do. But in the case of happiness, look to your children to teach you about happiness.

Children are naturally:

Fearless

Carefree

Find joy and ease in expressing themselves

Love unconditionally

Give with an open heart

Forgive easily

Tell the truth

Dream Big

See everyone as special, and treasure the differences in people

They don’t worry, they are just happy…

What could we possibly teach them about happiness? All this week on Parental Wisdom’s Facebook page, and Twitter Feed, enjoy!

It’s easy to parent little children with so much in our control. We oversee what they eat, when they sleep, what they wear, who they play with, what they watch and hear. A fall on the playground means a Band-Aid, a kiss, and it’s better.

But as our children grow, outside influences come into play. Life isn’t perfect, so it is important that we teach our children how to bounce back from adversity; how to be resilient.

When our children are faced with disappointments, how do you handle them?

I have a complied a list of over 400 values/qualities with a plan to focus on one each week for this series, but how to choose?

This week’s post was easy – it was love based on The Supreme Court Ruling best said by the closing paragraph:

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.”

We fail to understand when we deny people love, what they have to lose, which are the things we take for granted:

“This Fall we [my partner and I] will go to Disney World. It will be the first time that we travel out of state without having to bring Power of Attorney and Healthcare Proxy forms with us, in case anything happened to either of us. We had to do 2nd parent adoptions for our children, in case anything happened to either of us. We have had to do many things that everyone else takes for granted, all because of legislative action (or inaction as the case may be).“ Kris Conley

We have to think what those who are opposed to gay marriage have to lose…Sorry, I can’t think of a single thing.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. Buddha